The China National Space Administration published on Saturday four pictures taken by its Tianwen 1 Mars mission, including the first full photo of the mission orbiter.

The color pictures show the orbiter flying around the Red Planet in an orbit, the ice cover on Mars' north pole and a scene of a barren Martian plain.

The orbiter's full picture was taken by a camera released by the craft, which is now about 350 million kilometers away from Earth, the administration said in a statement.

Launched in July 2020 from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province, the Tianwen 1 robotic probe, named after an ancient Chinese poem, traveled a total of 475 million kilometers and carried out several trajectory maneuvers before entering Martian orbit on Feb 10.

After over three months of preparations, a landing capsule released by the probe descended through the Martian atmosphere in an extremely challenging landing process and finally touched down on the Red Planet on May 15, making China the second country, after the United States, to have successfully conducted Martian landing.

On May 22, the Chinese rover Zhurong traveled onto the Martian soil, becoming the sixth rover on Mars, following five predecessors from the US.

As of Saturday morning, the 1.85-meter-tall, 240-kilogram Zhurong had worked on Martian land for 224 days - far outliving its three-month life expectancy. The rover had traveled more than 1,400 meters.

The Tianwen 1 mission has obtained and transmitted nearly 540 gigabytes of data, mission controllers at the China National Space Administration said, adding it still has sufficient energy and is in good condition.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

Related Links
Lunar Exploration and Space Program
Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Scientists envision what Mars would look like as an exoplanet
Boulder CO (SPX) Dec 15, 2021
In science fiction movies and television shows, real-life locations on Earth, such as California's Redwood National Forest and the Sahara Desert, have long been used to represent alien worlds. But recently, in a Star Trek-style twist, a group of scientists, including researchers at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder, have been using a planet in our own backyard-Mars-to help characterize and identify habitable, Earth-like planets in other solar s ... read more